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January 2012

(2011) 131 ITD 84 (Hyd.) Sri Venkateswara Bhakti Channel v. ACIT, Circle-1(1) Dated: 26-11-2010

By C. N. Vaze, Shailesh Kamdar, Jagdish T. Punjabi, Bhadresh Doshi
Chartered Accountants
Reading Time 1 mins
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Section 12A — Can a section 25 company be registered u/s.12A of Income-tax Act — Held, Yes.

Facts:

The assessee-company was registered u/s.25 of the Companies Act, 1956 and was engaged in producing religious feature films, serials for a temple. It applied for registration u/s.12A with the Commissioner. The application was rejected on the grounds that the assessee was a private limited company.

Held:
The provisions of section 11 deal with the exemption of the total income of a ‘person’ who derives income from property held under trust for charitable or religious purposes. The plain reading of the definition of person also includes a company. The word institution is also not defined anywhere in section 12AA, but the meaning as given in Oxford Dictionary nowhere suggests that company is not an institution. The company being a person in accordance with the scheme of the Act is entitled to benefit of section 12A.

Thus the test whether an assessee could be registered u/s.12A is not the status of the ‘person’, but on the basis that whether the person (assessee) was established for charitable or religious purpose.

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